FIFA 14 Ultimate Team Coin Making Tips & Trading Methods

FIFA 14 Ultimate Team
Coin Making Tips and Methods

In Ultimate Team there’s unfortunately no secret way to make
a lot of coins really fast. There’s
plenty of guides out there but most of them are just general knowledge or are
outdated; the transfer market moves too quickly for any kind of tricks to work
for any period of time. In order to make
coins in FIFA UT and to keep your squad healthy and wealthy you need to
understand the transfer market – how to maximize the coins you bring in and
minimize the coins you spend.

Here is my collection of knowledge I've gained from having
highly successful clubs worth millions of coins over the last few years of FIFA
Ultimate Team. I will be constantly
updating these tips whenever I have new information, or when anything changes.
These tips should be able to help any player, from those very new to Ultimate
Team, to experienced players looking to make their club even more profitable.

The first thing to understand is that making coins is slow and steady. The only way to get coins quickly is from buying them. If you want a quick boost of a few hundred thousand coins, check out the only site I'd trust:

Getting Started

Helpful Tools:

There's a few tools that you're going to need to become
familiar with if you're not already; the official EA sportsFIFA
14 Ultimate Team web app, and unofficial Ultimate Team sites in order to
look up more information on players, the market, etc. By far the best website out there for
everything FIFA related isFUThead.

Shop The Catalogue:

The first thing you should do before you start trading on
Ultimate Team is to check out the catalogue.
The most important thing you’ll find in here is the ability to increase
your transfer list size. In order to buy
from the catalogue, you need to level up your EA level, and earn credits to buy
them. This can be done from doing just
about anything in FIFA; turning on the game, buying UT packs, winning matches,
etc. Here are the notable items that I’d recommend:

Level 11: +10 transfer list size

Level 20: +20 transfer targets size

Level 35: +10 transfer list size

Level 53: +30 transfer list size

Level 83: +20 transfer list size

Increasing your transfer list size from the FIFA 14 menu is very helpful when trading.

Other items which can be bought are extra squad slots, the
ability to change your club name, and 99 match contracts. These contracts are great for when you buy a
player you plan on using for a long time, although they can also be sold for a
few thousand coins in the auction house.
Until recently you were also able to unlock match coin boosts, which would
award you up to 1000 coins per match you play, for 5-15 matches. EA has discontinued this since players were
able to buy unlimited amounts of these as gifts to friends, and therefore would
be able to have unlimited coin boots.
It’s still unknown if these will return once the bug is fixed.

Buying & Selling

Know the price to pay:

Let’s say there’s a player you want to buy. Inexperienced
players will simply search for the player on the market, get into bidding wars,
and end up paying a lot more coins than they should have. When I have a player
I want to buy, here is what I do:

*search for lowest BIN (buy-it-now) price of that player

*enter that BIN price as the maximum price

*watch the price that these auctions usually get bid up to,
usually by adding a few to your transfer targets

Now we know the market price for this player. We can either decide to go and buy that
player through a BIN, or wait to win an auction. Usually players can be won for cheaper on
auction, but also look out for players listed with a BIN price lower than their
market price. They usually get bought
within seconds though, so decide fast.

This is much better than blindly buying players without
knowing its market price. After knowing
the lowest price you could BIN for, or the price you should be able to win
auctions at, you’ll end up paying a lot less for your players. After you know the price you’re willing to
pay, stick with it, and don’t let yourself get into bidding wars.

Winning Auctions:

There are two common bidding techniques I use to win
auctions. One is snipe bidding, and the
other is mass bidding.

Snipe bidding: Waiting just before the auction ends, trying
to win the auction with one last second bid.
If you bid below 15 (may be 25 this year?) seconds, the timer will reset
back up to that many seconds. I’d always
wait and bid when the timer hits 16 seconds. This simply limits the time people
have to bid up the price of the auction you want to win.

Mass bidding: Involves bidding on many auctions of one
player or card, hoping to win at least one of them. Works well if you have a lot of coins
available. First, find the market price
of that card, and decide a price you’d be willing to pay for that card, usually
a little lower than the market price.
Then, bid on as many auctions ending soon as you can at that price. You will get outbid on most of these
auctions; do not bid of them again. You
should end up winning at least one of these eventually. If you win more than one, you should be able
to sell any extras for a small profit, if you did buy for under its average
selling price.

More Buying Tips:

Look for auctions with a good starting price, with no
bids. For example, if there is a player
with an average selling price of around 19-20k, I’ll get really excited if I
see an auction starting at around 18k.
More often than not I can bid his starting price, and I won’t have
anyone competing with me for the auction.

Always narrow your search results as much as you can. Make use of minimum and maximum price values
too. Doing this is actually easier on
the console since you can type in the name of the player.

Buy items at peak times, when there are a lot of items on
the transfer market. This will keep
prices of players low.

Pay attention to the online tournaments. When a tournament that calls for certain
leagues/nations, their best players will rise quite drastically. Similar, when these tournaments end, the
prices of these players will crash. Make
use of this when buying and selling!

When buying players, always look at the number of contracts
they have, as well as their fitness (if you can’t keep him on the bench for a
game or two before using him). If you
see two players, one for 100 coins more but has 90 contracts compared to 2, it
should be clear what the better buy is.
Always look for this.

I'll take this guy.

Buy a good, cheap substitute squad. Investing a few thousand
coins in some good substitutes is much better than wasting money on
consumables. Not only will you not ever
have to buy fitness cards, but you’ll be able to sell these cards once you no
longer need them. Also you’ll have good
players to use in game in case of an injury or fatigue. Try to make sure these players will fit well
into your main squad, chemistry wise. I
usually substitute my full squad out for my benched squad every time my fitness
drops to 80-85. If you do this, fitness
and fitness cards will never be an issue for you.

The Art of Selling:

Selling items is the main form of revenue for your squad, so
you want to know how to sell well.
Unfortunately in FIFA 14, the auction house can be narrowed down much
more than in previous years, so it’s a little more difficult to trade above
what your card is worth.

Selling should always start with determining the market
price of the player, as explained in the buying tips above. Let’s say there’s a bunch of auctions for one
player which you’re trying to sell. You
saw a few auctions end at 2200, 2100, 2400, 2300 and one BIN for 2600. This means the market price for the player
should be around 2300-2400 coins. If I
were trying to get the most value for my player, I’d start my listing at 2700,
and add a buy-it-now price of 2900. The
difference between these two values is only 200 coins, so most buyers won’t
wait until the auction ends; they’ll just pay the extra 200 coins. So I was able to sell this card for 2900,
almost 20% more than the average price.
You may have to list this player multiple times for it to sell, but
being patient and getting a good price is much better than wasting these
potential coins.

More Selling Tips:

Always remember the “EA Tax” of 5% every time you sell an
item. This means that you only ever get
95% of the price of anything you sell.
If you sold a player for 1000 coins, you’ll only get 950 coins.

Always use the BIN feature, and keep it close to the
starting price. There is no reason to
set a low starting price, other than hoping that you’ll start a bidding war for
your player. More often than not you
won’t see this player bid up to the price you may want. Instead, set a starting price which you’d be
happy if it sold for, and then set a BIN price slightly higher than that. The BIN feature also increases the odds that
your item will sell. Some buyers simply
want their item now, and will overlook auctions without these.

Use 9’s, not 0’s. In
my example above I set the BIN price to 2900, rather than 3000. This is because 2900 looks a lot cheaper than
3000, and is much more likely to sell.
Business theory on pricing tells us people are a lot more likely to buy
an item when it ends in a 9, even compared to lower numbers like 8. Make use of this.

List your items as often as you can. If I’m out at school on my laptop, I’ll keep
the web app open and try to re-set my offers every hour. When I’m at home I can keep my console
running and use one of my favourite additions to FIFA 14 Ultimate Team, the one
button “re-list all” feature. Listing
auctions for an hour is the best way to bring in coins because the majority of
items on the market usually only sell in the last few minutes.

If you know you won’t be able to re-list your items for a
period of time, list them longer than an hour. When I go to bed I always list
my auctions for 6 or 12 hours. When you
do this, you can even try to raise the prices on some of your auctions. This
works because you’ll be selling during non-peak times, when there are fewer
items on the market.

Know the discard price of different cards. For example, non rare gold cards will always
sell for at least 300 coins, so don’t start any auctions below 350 coins.

Coin-Making Tips and Methods

Bronze Packs:

This method was actually awesome in FIFA 13, although this
year I’ve found that bronze consumables sell a lot less often. Also fitness cards I was able to sell for
300/350, although in FIFA 14 I’ve only been able to sell them for 200/250. I’ll
still explain this method, because it still shouldn’t be overlooked. If you ever want to fill up your trade pile,
increase your club value, collect staff cards which give boosts to contracts
and training, or even if you need your own cheap consumables, buying bronze
packs is always a good option. A normal bronze pack costs 400 coins. It contains 12 items, with on average finding
3-4 items which can be sold for 150/200.
If you sell four items, two for 150 and two BIN for 200, you just made
an easy 300 coins. No, this isn’t a
massive amount of coins, but considering you can have a trade pile of 50/80/100
items, this can add up. Every dozen
packs or so you’ll find a rare fitness card, which can be sold between
1000-1500 coins.

A decent bronze pack, 5 items selling for 200 coins each on average. 600 coin profit for almost no work!

These are the sellable cards you’ll find in a pack:-contacts and rare contracts (rare I sell for 200/250)-fitness and
rare fitness-rare staff-rare stadiums-rare
healing -rare training-funny coloured ballAnd of course, certain players:-80+ pace-players from the BPL-players from highly supported clubs -
Manchester, Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern, Dortmund, ect-really bad players (anything under 47/48 may
sell. Woo, the lowest
rated player in the game, can go for thousands)-good players (good pace with 60+ in their
important stats to their position, especially with nationality matching league
[Italian in Serie A/B], and also especially when rare). English and Brazilians
go for the most.Listing fully filled transfer lists every hour can add up to
thousands of coins throughout the day, for only a few minutes of work.

Trading For Profit:

This method I call this ‘merchanting’, which involves buying
an item, then reselling it for a profit.
This is difficult to do because it’s not easy finding items which can be
bought and sold for high enough to profit on, especially after the 5% EA
tax. This year in FIFA 14 it’s even
harder now that almost everything can be narrowed down to the exact card in an
auction search.

I can’t tell you exactly what to do, since too many people
would know the method, then it would no longer be profitable. Find your own tricks in the market. Maybe there’s a player which can be bought,
modified in some way (position, chemistry style), and sold for a good
profit. Maybe there are certain kits or
stadiums which you find to be good for trading.
Find your own tricks, and see how they work for you.

A similar method to this is called price fixing. It involves buying out every card under a
certain price on the market, and relisting them for higher. This only works if you have the funds to keep
buying up all the auctions under the price you choose, and if people are
willing to pay the extra coins.

Investing:

Investing in Ultimate Team isn't easy, as over time, most
players depreciate in value. If you’re
looking for a large investment, the best thing to buy is probably an in-form
card. These tend to increase in value,
as there are no more of that card entering the market. Last year I spend ~400,000 coins on IF Juan
Mata, which my friends all thought was a waste.
He was a great player to use though, and he ended up being worth over
500,000 coins when I was ready to sell him.

The best investments seem to be made based on real life
news. Recently transferred players will
spike in value, since no more of that one card will be entering the game
through packs. Better yet, find news of
transfer talks before the transfer happens on Ultimate Team.

Big, real life FIFA games also affect the price of
players. If Barcelona will be in the
Champions league final in a couple of weeks, Messi should be bought as early as
possible and sold at the time of the game for a much higher price. Performances during real life matches are
also important. If a United game is
coming up, Van Persie can be bought in hopes that he’ll have a good
performance. If he plays exceptionally
well during the game, expect his value to rise.
A part of the reason why he rises will be in anticipation of an in-form
card being released, which will increase the value of his normal card even
more.

Discard Method:

This method isn't going to make you millions but if you need
a few quick coins it’s pretty handy.
Every player has a set discard price, based on its rarity and overall
rating. All of these values can be found
here.
Any non-rare player over a 75 rating can
be bought for 300 coins and quick sold for a profit. Same with rare players over 75 bought at 600
coins. An alternative to this method is
buying players for their quick sell value, and then listing them slightly
higher. For example, a non-rare gold card can be bought for 300 coins, and then
listed at 350/400.

59th Minute Method:

Another well known method, which involves you going all the
way to the 59th minute of listings.
You’ll be looking for anything listed that’s well below its usual price,
which can be sold for a lot more. Some
players make mistakes when listing items, putting up BIN prices much lower than
they’re worth. These players are usually
sold within the first few seconds of the listing so you have to be really fast,
and know your prices well. It’s not the
most reliable method, but there’s a chance of making a lot more profit than
most other ways of making coins.

Happy hour:

Some of the best investments I've made have been during
happy hour. Even if you’re not buying
your own packs during this happy hour, take advantage of the fact that a lot of
people are buying packs. This results in
lower prices for almost EVERYTHING. Last
year there was a particular happy hour where I was able to fully fill up my
consumables with rare gold contracts which I bought for 150 or 200 coins. Don’t expect this every time, but do look for
deals, and sell them in the following days when prices return to normal.

Invest in your club during this time. If I know I’ll need any chemistry styles or
modifiers in the future I’ll buy them now when they’re cheap. I also buy staff cards during this time. I try to get the highest contract boost for
as cheap as I can, so I spend even less on consumables in the long run.

Don’t Bleed Coins on Consumables!:

I covered most of this in other parts of the guide, but this
is important. I had a friend who
couldn’t even afford to keep his squad on the pitch. He was only making a couple hundred coins per
match, and had all of his players either needing contracts or becoming too
tired to even move. Here’s a few tips to
avoid this:

*buy RARE contracts.
If you plan on using this player for a period of time, spend a few more
coins and buy a rare contract for him.
You’ll get double the games out of that player and per game they cost a
lot less to keep your player on the field.

*don’t buy fitness cards, rather, invest in a cheap but good
substitute squad. Always have another squad that you can play with, putting
your fatigued players on the bench.

*if you need a bronze consumable, just buy a 400 coin bronze
pack. You’ll most likely find what you
need, plus other items which can be sold to break even or even profit on.

Don’t Buy Packs!:

At least, not for coins.
If you have the money to blow on FIFA points then go for it. Every year I usually get about $15 worth of
points just to start off the year with a healthy amount of coins, as players
are worth a lot more right when the game comes out. After the first few months of FIFA 14 prices
drop, you’ll be extremely lucky if you actually profit on any of these packs if
you spent your coins on them. If you are
going to open a pack, buy the one with the most rare cards. The rare cards are the only chance you’ll
ever have of making any significant profit.Instead of buying FIFA points, lately I've been using MMOGA, the only site I trust to always deliver my coins right away. I get more coins this way, rather than getting 300 coin players from every pack:

Hopefully
my experience with Ultimate Team has been able to teach you something, and
you'll be ready to start watching the coins flow in. Having a wealthy squad
means you'll be able to get the best players, keep them in shape, and win more
games. Good luck out there!